Will UC-Berkeley get SF Art Institute’s Russian Hill campus?

The San Francisco Art Institute will close its campus on Russian Hill after 151 years.

The private college called it quits after the University of San Francisco backed out of a deal to absorb operations of the campus at 800 Chestnut Street, the San Francisco Business Times reported. It was the second deal for the campus to fall through since the pandemic.

The University of San Francisco would not enter into a definitive agreement with SFAI “due to business risks that could impact USF students, faculty and staff,” USF President John Fitzgerald said in a statement. He said USF would instead build its own art school.

The Art Institute was “no longer financially viable,” it said in a statement. While it has “ceased its degree programs,” it will continue as a nonprofit “to protect its name, archives and legacy.”

The San Francisco Art Institute, founded in 1871, was the oldest art college west of the Mississippi River. In 1926, it moved into its campus on Russian Hill, known for its Diego Rivera mural, “The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City.” Its May graduation was its last.

The school will exit the campus, but is working to protect its prized asset, the Diego Rivera Gallery, which it will lose should it default or lose its lease on the building.

The University of California has rights to the land itself, owing to an agreement that established the institute’s use of the campus.

In January USF and SFAI signed a letter of intent to merge both schools, with the intent of beginning programs this fall.

The two sides weren’t able to agree on the future for the land – a half block of prime hillside real estate with bay views. The land was donated to SFAI via a trust that turns the land over to UC Berkeley if the site is no longer used as an art campus.

The deal was also threatened by the Art Institute’s lackluster finances, low enrollment and the cost of bringing the Chestnut Street campus up to code.

The institute’s graduate campus at Fort Mason Center closed in 2020,and was put on the market for sublease after a $14 million makeover.

– Dana Bartholomew

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